Comments on: Why Conversions Can Be a Messy SEO Metric

By: nightlifeblues

nightlifeblues — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 16:59:02 +0000

yap off course Site evaluation for conversion is an Art which is based on the Psychology of the visitor, their tendencies based on historical performance and common sense. It is easily measured, and in most cases can be manipulated to a successful result based on revenue or whatever model the client requires.

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By: nightlifeblues

nightlifeblues — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 11:59:02 +0000

By: Alexander de Albuquerque

Alexander de Albuquerque — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 15:24:48 +0000

Conversions are 100% relevant to SEO. Here is a question. What is the point of driving traffic to a site that doesn’t convert? Whos fault would that be? Did we rank for the wrong keywords or is the site simply not competitive enough?

Conversions are a part of “Online Marketing”. SEO is simply one channel. It is directly responsible for the “quality of traffic” brough to the site. Catchy page titles, headers, content, calls to action, even site layout requires webdesigners, online marketers, copy writers, marketing and PR people to work collectively. The post above refers to the SEO servicing in a very narrow “old fashioned way”. SEO is evolving as quickly as the web does and simply “driving traffic” isn’t enough. The best SEO’s will understand the purpose of any given site and work towards achieving goals that stretch beyond rankings.

Analysing data from Analytics to fully understand a visitors response to any given site is an SEO job, woudn’t we agree?

SEO has evolved way beyond good rankings.

Although I agree, you cannot possibly base an SEO campaign on a “pay on performance” basis as this isn’t feasible in an environment where SEOs have no control over rankings or visitors.

By: Jon Bentley

Jon Bentley — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 23:32:42 +0000

Great article, and a really interesting topic that I think is going to become more and more prevalent.

Whilst the two topics are currently separate, and as a result should be kept separate (i.e. separate skill sets, and payment for SEO should not be conversion based) I think they are going to start to overlap.

With personalized search, rankings are going to mean less, and conversion rates (the real reason why our customers do SEO) will become more important. Therefore to prepare for the future, an increased focus on conversion optimization should be taken, and perhaps sell these addition features, becoming more of a Internet Marketing provider, rather than an SEO provider.

By: Raquel Hirsch

Raquel Hirsch — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 00:27:19 +0000

Well, according to Randy Fishkin of SEOmoz, he present a table describing three tiers of marketing channels and their scores for Average ROI, Average Effort and Average Cost. Conversion Optimization appears in the #1 placement for Tier 1.

So… no need to be squamish about improving the conversion rate (more comments here: http://www.widerfunnel.com/blog)

By: Stoney deGeyter

Stoney deGeyter — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 17:07:19 +0000

SEOs certainly can affect conversion rates and that should be a core focus. But, as you pointed out, the SEO doesn’t have enough control over it that it makes sense to make it a good payment structure. I wouldn’t stake my income on something I can’t control to that degree.

By: ashbey

ashbey — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 12:20:18 +0000

Conversions are what is clients are concerned about. An SEO can boast about getting #1 rank for #keyword but for client it would be nothing if there are no conversions.

The “Factors affecting conversion rates” you have mentioned, most of it would be part of website analysis, pre SEO phase. An efficient SEO would be well aware of them and hence have full control of what decision he makes.

What do you think about “Server down time”?
Other than “Conversions” which other metrics is it going to affect?
Almost every one, directly or indirectly.

I do not find any reason to pick out just “Conversions” as a messy SEO metric.

By: Jack Adams

Jack Adams — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 09:56:02 +0000

Anyone without the smarts to understand what conversions as a metric does and does not explain in and of itself should be allowed to make the requisite mistakes that would force them into another industry that’s more suited to their skills (or lack thereof).

By: Todd Heim

Todd Heim — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 21:57:06 +0000

I totally agree with Lyndsay. I use conversion stats to determine the quality of traffic coming from search engines. It shows me what keyword research does not.

An example of this: a client of ours has 2 main keywords. The one phrase represents about twice as much traffic as the other, yet still only about half the conversions. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that focusing on the latter is more valuable.

While it’s not a great success metric on its own, it’s a good way to show your clients how they get a return on their investment. And paying attention to it allows you to further optimize for ROI, not just rankings or traffic.

By: Alan Bleiweiss

Alan Bleiweiss — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 17:45:51 +0000

I get asked this more and more. And I am brutally honest right away.

Unless I control the company I’m doing the work for all the way down to actually having control over the product and services actually being offered, let alone the marketing copy, web site design UI and content, there is no way I will ever work on a pay for performance basis.